“URGENT: Immediate Action Required” blasts into my eyeballs as I scroll through an impossibly giant email inbox looming directly in front of my face. With Xreal smart glasses, tethered to my laptop via a USB-C cord, the virtual screen mirrors the laptop display and projects it into a 170-inch TV equivalent, right there at my nose.

Wearing these glasses, I tackle five workplace training modules about business principles and cybersecurity, despite the text being blurry. It takes several hours, and by the end, my forehead is sweaty and the glasses are overheated. The Xreal glasses don’t recognize phishing emails any better than I do.

Made by companies like Xreal, Viture, and Rokid, these virtual display glasses aim to bring a screen directly to your face. Plug in, chill out in an airplane seat or lie prone, and the big screen stays right there with you. They might be useful for gaming or watching videos but aren’t exactly inconspicuous enough to walk around in.

These glasses don't suffer from privacy issues like Meta's “pervert glasses” do. No cameras, no recording—just sweet, sweet content consumption beamed out an inch from your eye holes. The Xreal glasses could even be lauded for their privacy protections, at least for the user. Got sensitive documents or embarrassing videos you're trying to watch on a plane? A virtual display is one only the wearer can see.

The fundamental thing these glasses do well is that they just work,” says Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategies. The Xreal ROG Xreal R1 displays a 171-inch virtual screen in a 57-degree field of view, which you can anchor in place or have the screen stay dead center in your vision as you turn your head different directions.